Adaption to living with HIV/AIDS

In 2002, Jean-Pierre (one of the RDIS staff) was the head of the provincial committee for HIV/AIDS. Today, we visited families with whom he worked, and the evidence of their programme was clear … completely transformed lives. The lady here is HIV positive. She has been since 1997. Eight years back she was very close to giving up, weighing only 30kms, but today she stands healthy weighing a full 70. The main challenge Jean-Pierre and his team faced was to get people to accept themselves and to accept those who were affected. When people find out they have the virus, they tend to keep quiet about it because of fear of being rejected by the community. They even feel too ashamed to visit a health centre to receive antiretroviral treatment. Consequently they fall behind, their families fall behind and the virus keeps spreading. Many are even too scared to be tested for HIV because of this reason. Jean-Pierre’s programme provided social support to those diagnosed, encouraging them to face life and fight the challenge with God’s help. The programme also assisted them to start small businesses to generate income for their treatment and their families, as businessmen are reluctant to employ a person with HIV/AIDS. They are then also provided with start-up cash to get going. The treatment has worked very well for this single mother of three (her husband died in the genocide) and she was able to raise her children to the point where they are now working and able to provide the income for the family. Her youngest is also affected with HIV and receiving treatment, but I believe that with this type of support, she’ll live to see many more days. In another family we visited, both parents are affected, but through the programme they came to accept their status, embrace whatever support was provided and now have two children who are clean and who will according to them ‘be able to live the family legacy’.